


Setting Things In Motion

by BadVVolfs



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Bad Wolf, Bad Wolf Rose Tyler, Canon-Compliant, Gen, manipulating events
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-23
Updated: 2017-03-23
Packaged: 2018-10-09 12:24:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10412112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BadVVolfs/pseuds/BadVVolfs
Summary: The Bad Wolf sees all of Time. She sees the future of Rose Tyler, and she weeps. She sees the future of the Doctor, and she weeps even more. But she also sees that there are those who can make the journey easier.





	

**Author's Note:**

> [Now translated into Finnish by gammotus!](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10722798)

**"I am the Bad Wolf. I create myself."**

She can see the room before her, with the Doctor on the floor among the cables and the Daleks at the other end in front of the screen that shows the Emperor. But she can also see so much more.

 **"I take the words."** Her hand comes up and waves imperiously towards the Bad Wolf Corporation sign.  **"I scatter them in time and space."** The physical letters split away from the wall, floating off into the Vortex. She knows where they will land - all around the Powell Estates in 2005 and 2006, and Cardiff, and Platform One, and Satellite Five a century in the past. She has seen them there as Rose Tyler.

The Bad Wolf stretches further, though. The words end up in an alien marketplace in the distant future, and even slip through the cracks of reality and affix themselves to a desolate beach in Norway.

 **"A message to lead myself here."** Her calling card, in a sense - the words that signaled that she would always return to the Doctor in the end.

"Rose!" His voice breaks through the haze of Time and Power. "You've got to stop this. You've got to stop this now! You've got the entire Vortex running through your head. You're gonna  _burn!"_

Her eyes snap down to meet his, and the golden film that had been coloring her vision fades.  **"I want you safe. My Doctor. Protected from the false god."**

"You cannot hurt me. I am immortal!"

The golden glare returns as she looks back at the Emperor.  **"You are tiny,"** she proclaims.  **"I can see the whole of Time and Space, every single atom of your existence, and I divide them."** Her hand raises again, and it is with no small amount of satisfaction that she watches the first Dalek dissolve into golden mist.  **"Everything must come to dust."** She is only vaguely aware that there is a wetness on her cheek - a small portion of her mind that remains distinctly Rose Tyler realizes that she is crying.  **"All things. Everything dies."** Around them, the Daleks disintegrate one by one.

She speaks only the truth; everything does die. She can see that soon, the Doctor will, to save the life of Rose. She can see the man he will become, she can see the terrors they will face together, and she can see the fate of Rose Tyler. Is that why she is crying?

 _No_. The small part of her that remains very human knows she is not the type to cry for herself. The tears are for the Doctor.

Because she can see everything, and she can see his loneliness aching across the stars as he tries to run from his past - the Last of the Time Lords, doomed to be alone for the end of his days. She cannot let that happen, she  _mustn't_.

The Daleks are all gone now, save for one.

**"The Time War ends."**

"I will not die!" the Emperor shouts. "I cannot die!"

It is laughably easy to send the entire Dalek battleship into dust and nothingness. 

Her heart aches at the thought of the Doctor facing that same nothingness without her by his side.  _And yet..._

She can see the possibilities, the twisted threads of time and chance, and she can see how they might be tugged slightly. Just enough to set events in motion. Just enough to ensure the Doctor won't be alone for long.

She sees a teenager in an unhappy household, turning up her music to try and drown out the shouting of her parents as she holds her younger siblings close. The Bad Wolf can see that the girl wants to help people, and there are many ways to do that, but only one will lead her into the path of the Doctor. She places an idea in the girl's mind, to look into signing up for the anatomy class at school - it will light the spark and send young Martha on her way to medical school and the Royal Hope hospital.

She sees a young woman with no self-esteem, worn down by the overbearing presence of her mother, and she sees a crucial decision in an innocuous moment; the woman and her mother sat at an intersection, arguing over which way to turn. The Bad Wolf sees three different versions of the same event, glimpses Rose Tyler coming to cradle the young woman in her last moments in an alternate reality, and reaches through Rose to whisper her name in the young woman's ear. She turns her attention back to the original event and places a burning coal of courage in the woman's heart, encouraging her to rise up against her mother, and Donna chooses to turn left.

She sees a child with so many twisted and tangled and aborted timelines, integral to the continuation of the universe, and she also sees that the child will never reach her full potential without suffering some heartbreak early on. It is reversible, she knows, but it still pains her to know what will happen to the child's parents because of what she must do. The Bad Wolf reaches out and traces a line on the wall of Amelia's bedroom, and a thin crack appears.

She sees a thousand women with the same face and similar names and a single, united purpose:  _save the Doctor_. She feels a kinship with the multitudes, as that is her purpose, too. She also sees how fragile the existence of the original girl is, how unlikely, even in a world driven solely by chance and happenstance. The Bad Wolf blows a chill wind, plucks a leaf from a branch, and sends it spiraling into the face of a man walking past. She lifts up the head of a woman in time to see the situation, and gives her a boost of speed to pull the man out of harm's way. Clara is blown into the world on a leaf, and is blessed by the smile of a goddess as she watches.

"Rose, you've done it, now stop." A voice, _his_ voice, cuts through the mess of Time in her head, and she forces herself to focus back on the present moment. "Just let go!"

 **"How can I let go of this?"** she asks, still seeing the faces of friends to come in her mind's eye.  **"I bring life."**

On the floor below them, Jack gasps as he is resurrected. Another tear rolls down her cheek as she sees the millennias of pain and suffering he will endure, and Rose wishes that they could fix just this one death, but the Bad Wolf is insistent - he must live to save the lives of the people of New New York, to warn the Doctor of what is to come, to save hundreds of millions of lives over and over again. 

"But this is wrong!" the Doctor cries. "You can't control life and death!"

 **"But I can."** She looks back down at him, notes the fear in his eyes, fear for Rose. The sight makes the human part of her cry out silently, pushing for control.  **"The sun and the moon, the day and night."** The Bad Wolf retreats slightly, allowing Rose to take the reins, and both feel the pain of the Vortex. As the Bad Wolf relinquishes more control, the burning might of Time becomes stronger.  **"But why do they hurt?"** Rose asks, almost childishly.

"The power's gonna kill you, and it's my fault," the Doctor says, shouldering the guilt once again for something he never could have hoped to stop.

 **"I can see everything. All that is, all that was."** The timelines that the Bad Wolf had so carefully tugged into position seared through Rose's mind, and for a few brief minutes, the human knew what was coming for both herself and the Time Lord, and it was heartbreaking.  **"All that ever could be."**  

The Doctor stands up at that. "That's what I see," he says, almost in awe. "All the time. And doesn't it drive you mad?"

 **"My head,"** Rose chokes out.

"Come here."

 **"It's killing me,"** she says, and she can see that if he doesn't act soon, she will burn away to nothing.

"I think you need a Doctor."

The kiss is gentle, and unnecessary - he could have pulled the Vortex out of Rose without it, but neither of them are complaining. The Bad Wolf feels herself fading as she leaves Rose, and she weeps for the fate of this poor human girl who has no idea what is coming next, starting with the inevitable regeneration. But she has done all that she can, has set the right people into his path, and all that's left to do is return to the TARDIS, and wait for them all to arrive.

And when they do - Martha and Donna and Amy with Rory and Clara - she will be sure to greet them warmly, even if she knows she won't always get along with them. Because they, like all the others, will save the Doctor in more ways than one.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Tapahtumien sysääminen liikkeeseen](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10722798) by [gammotus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gammotus/pseuds/gammotus)




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